Sep 29, 2020
Action Park in Vernon, New Jersey was straight out of a Gen X teenager’s dream. The R-rated version of a John Hughes film, or as Jason Bailey at the New York Times puts it, “a rule-free stew of dangerous rides, teen guests, teen employees, raging hormones, 80s-style machismo, and booze”.
But for all the nostalgia, the place comes with bad memories for those whose loved ones were seriously injured, and in some cases killed by the reckless actions of Gene Mulvihill, the fallen Wall Street mogul who owned and ran the park.
Seth Porges and Chris Charles Scott, the co-directors of Class Action Park streamed on HBO Max, brilliantly capture both the time and place – Northern New Jersey in the 1980s and 1990s – that will never be repeated. And many would say thank God for that.
“The laughter of Action Park isn’t a designed joke; it’s not a comedy routine. It’s the laughter of a brain having no other way to process what it’s hearing. Laughter is something that happens when you can’t cry, you can’t scream, you can’t do anything else, all you can do is laugh. ” – Seth Porges